Hunter & Hunted - Part 1

I was enjoying the new found freedom in Kerala. Even though I was in +2 , I displayed far more maturity than my age. I had a lot of friends. Most important ones being B , P , D and S. Only one guy other than me had passed SSLC in the whole gang of about 8 ppl (it was B). Most of them were auto drivers and 2 of them worked at the near by workshop. Even though I was the youngest (rest everyone ranged from 18 – 24) , I soon declared myself the leader since I had seen the world and was way more sophisticated and handsome than all of them ( ok…ok….I had a computer and used to show them blue films ). My grandfather and grandmother used to sleep early and I could access my room from outside without disturbing them. Now to the story.

We got an Airgun one day. Everybody was visibly thrilled. We started our hunting on one fine Saturday afternoon. To our horror.. we soon found that an Airgun means a gun which should be used when there is no air. The bullet was so thin and the shot speed was minimal than even slight amount of air deviated it. We had decided against hunting wild animals like Tiger, Lion , Elephant etc because they were endangered species ( I gave them a whole lecture on that ). But D was sad because he had his eyes set on something big.

D: Eda…what about Nari, Kurukkan
Me : No…endangered
D: what about Poulose chettan’s Pothu
Me: No .. we will be endangered.

So we started our hunting expedition.

Me : Look boys , I am gonna shoot that Kokku ( Crane )
P : Eda patti… u just shot me
Me : Sorry da…the bullet might have taken a 180 degree turn due to turbulence
P : And mind you … I don’t enjoy being tickled.

We had several near misses ….

D : ( Taking aim at a kokku in the bush and moving closer for a better chance )
Me : Eda … u are too close
D : I know….just to make sure that I get my angle right.
B : Eda….you are too close .. you can hit and kill it with the Paathi ( gun’s handle )
D : shhhhhhh
Me : Eda.. I think that bird is trying to suicide…..it not even moving…just catch it with the hand
D : Shut up !! ( By now he was very thrilled at the thought that he was going to be the first one to get a strike )

And D shoots finally and the bird, as expected flies away.

D : Shit man…I didn’t get the angle correct
B : Yeah…and that may be because the tip of the gun touched the kokku

And finally it was me who got the first strike…the aim was perfect, the shot execution was awesome, the angle of incidence was spot on … the shot struck directly on the birds belly and we saw it falling to the side because the impact. I was ecstatic and crying with joy. My friends hugged me and congratulated me and then it happened!!!! That idiot bird got up and started flying (visibly injured … but still flying very low and in short intervals). I was so heart broken… but my dear friend S started running after it. He ran across the whole paadam (Paddy field) and after a good 30 mins , returned with the bird. S insisted that I give half the credit to him since he was the one threw some stick on it ( madalu ) and captured it. I explained it to him that utopian principles of hunting never allowed to do that. He was convinced…he never challenged my utopia…..